Daily Archives: September 18, 2007

Holy mother of crap, just how debased is Oklahoma State when it comes to T. Boone Pickens?

Cowboy fans are incensed about OSU’s slow start this season (especially after the preseason bragging). Athletic Director Mike Holder in trying to smooth the troubled waters, tells the troubled throngs that better days are ahead. That history says the school can rebound.

History, like in big wins in the past? Or like Barry Sanders becoming one of the all time greats in college football?

Holder also invoked the name of OSU’s top donor, Boone Pickens, as he called Saturday’s Texas Tech game an opportunity to make improvements out of failure. He pointed at Pickens’ loss of his company, Mesa Petroleum, in 1996, and how Pickens rebounded from that loss.

“He turned that into the greatest run he’s ever had,” Holder said. “Losing that company is the best thing that ever happened to him.”

Inspiring choice, that.

Look, just get it over with and rename the damned university after Pickens. Or at least establish a School of Arse Kissing in his name. Something.

Ah, those South Carolina Gamecocks, bless their hearts. Twelfth in the polls is such rarefied territory for them. Sort of like the Beverly Hillbillies, they don’t seem to have mastered the art of acting like you’ve been there before.

Case in point: defensive end Nathan Pepper, who blew out his left knee in their game against SC State. Exactly what was he doing that caused the injury?

… Pepper sustained the freak injury after reaching the end zone following his 19-yard interception return for a touchdown in the first quarter.“Hopefully, it will teach all of our guys a lesson. He just made some kind of little, funny move, I guess in a celebration-type way,” Spurrier said. “It wasn’t much. But it was enough to tear his knee ligament.”

“Teach our guys a lesson”? Sure, except this isn’t the first time that Pepper’s engaged in on-the-field antics that have caused problems:

Spurrier tried to teach Pepper a lesson last year when Pepper slowed up near the end zone during an interception runback at Clemson. After Pepper was caught from behind and fumbled into the end zone, Spurrier suspended for the first quarter of the Liberty Bowl.

The Tigers lead the conference in every defensive category except two – opponents’ fourth down conversions and red zone defense – and even there, when you look at the stats carefully they’re still impressive. In red zone defense (calculated on a percentage basis), for example, LSU is last in the conference, but it’s only allowed one red zone opportunity all season. The next closest are Georgia and South Carolina, both at eight.

Like some Biblical prophet, Tom Lemming has appeared to warn us of dark days coming at the hands of Satan… oops, Saban.

“Mark Richt now has got to be very careful and very wary of what Nick Saban is doing,” said Tom Lemming, a recruiting analyst. “I think it is not a matter of if but when he will win a national title at Alabama, and with that he will attract the majority of the major talent in the Southeast.”

And when that happens, all hell will break loose.

“He is relentless in his style, which really works well in recruiting,” Lemming said. “And he throws some pretty good personality in it too, which might surprise some people.

“The perception will be through the roof,” Lemming said. “If he is winning, Auburn could be in trouble.”

The AJ-C, in full pot-stirring mode, notes that

It’s not just Auburn. Saban has already started to reach into Georgia and established Alabama as a player again on the recruiting scene in this state. He’s hired two coaches with Georgia backgrounds, Kirby Smart and Lance Thompson.

We’re doomed, I tell you.

Lemming then proceeds to insult the current roster of ‘Bama players with this comment:

“[In recent years Alabama] hasn’t been out there and hasn’t gone out and aggressively recruited the great player,” Lemming said. “Now, he is doing it with a purpose.”

Asked to respond, Mark Richt showed remarkable restraint.

As for whether Saban’s presence is being felt yet, Richt was noncommittal.

“I don’t know yet,” Richt said. “It is hard to say. Shoot, there is just X amount of kids out there and we’re all going after them. Not everybody can get them all.

“I really think everybody is going to get their fair share of players and have enough good players to win, and it is a matter of how you coach them and how fortunate you are with injuries or what guy decides to stay and not go pro.”

A quick look at Scout.com’s recruiting board shows that Georgia has 18 verbals for the class of ’08. Two are from the state of Alabama (both were offered by ‘Bama). Saban has collected 19 verbals. One of those is a Georgia product, and he was offered by the Dawgs. Interestingly enough, four of Georgia’s commits were also offered by Saban, but evidently weren’t as impressed as Lemming.

My favorite part of the article is what Lemming doesn’t say. He sees dark days ahead for both Auburn and Georgia, and yet is strangely silent about the effect Saban will have on Tennessee’s recruiting. UT has been successful over the years in getting quality kids out of the state of Alabama. This year, Scout shows Tennessee with one commit out of Alabama, a two star recruit that Saban evidently didn’t offer.